


Histories of Silence

by Sour_Idealist



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Bisexual Character, Canon Queer Character, Gen, queerkid party somewhere in Europe, sometimes you just really want two characters to be friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-05
Updated: 2014-02-05
Packaged: 2018-01-11 06:25:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1169756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sour_Idealist/pseuds/Sour_Idealist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I can carry my own weight,” Nico snaps.<br/>“And so you are.” Reyna's mouth twitches. “Technically, you’re carrying all of our weight. It’s my job to make sure that you can. Now stay put.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Histories of Silence

**Author's Note:**

> After more than a year of not posting, I return from the ether with a brand-new fandom!
> 
> ...In which I write about lonely queer kids with too much on their shoulders. The more things change?
> 
> Warnings for internalized homophobia, mentions of forced outing, general self-loathing, and vomit. Many thanks to [Ashley](gooodmorningmayamatlin.tumblr.com) and [Kate](http://archiveofourown.org/users/nonisland/pseuds/nonisland) for all their encouragement and kindness.
> 
> Also, and just for the record, this is very firmly a friendship story.

It’s near sunset on a sloping hillside, trees in rows – an orchard – marching up and down the curves of the hills, painting the ground in lacy patterns of shadow. In the distance, the red-and-grey roofs of a village poke through the treetops, clustered around a spire and snaking in the direction of a watery glint.

Between one moment and another, a vast and shining statue pops into existence at the base of a tree, branches cracking above it. The statue sways on the hill, listing heavily to one side; the three figures crowded around the base all shout at once, but the statue comes to a halt off-center but stable enough.

Nico slumps back against the heavy base and curses in Ancient Greek for a solid minute, tossing in a few modern words for emphasis. Reyna and Coach Hedge can dodge; Nico’s trussed to the damn thing.

“I believe we’ve found our campsite for tonight,” Reyna observes, stepping back. It’s two days into the trip, and she knows very well not to offer Nico help getting himself unstrapped from the statue. He’s got it on his own, thank you very much.

“I can get us another jump tonight,” he says, shoving the last straps off his shoulders. He staggers forward two steps, bends over, and vomits violently onto the grass. He manages to splatter the Athena Parthenos, too, which probably doesn’t do him any favors with the goddess.

“That’s right, kiddo, get it all out,” Coach Hedge says, walloping him on the back. Nico nearly overbalances and falls into his own disgusting mess, which would really be _all_ he needs right now, but he manages to dodge the next encouraging thump. Reyna catches Hedge by the arm, giving him a look that Nico suspects would make your average rhinoceros sit down and look sheepish.

“Coach,” she says, “why don’t you head into town and get us something to eat tonight?” She jerks her head at the village in the distance. “We’ll set up camp.” Eying the ground, she adds, “Maybe a couple of rows over.”

“I can –” Nico starts, bracing his hands against his knees. His head is pounding, puking hasn’t done his throat any favors, and he has no idea where their next jump is going to drop them, but he has to keep going, he has to. _Especially_ after embarrassing himself like that.

Reyna raises her eyebrows at him.

“Coach Hedge,” she says, turning to him, “we’ll be perfectly safe setting up camp. There’s nothing dangerous around here, and you can scout out the area and bring back supplies.”

“Will do, ma’am,” Coach Hedge says, snapping off a salute. Somewhere in the past two days, he’s decided Reyna is worthy of his respect. It’s a little unsettling. For such a short guy, he sure does get out of there quickly, vanishing into the thicker trees at the base of the hill.

Nico and Reyna look at each other.

“I can make at least another jump,” Nico insists, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Reyna sighs.

“It will do me no favors to show up with the corpse of a camper, Athena Parthenos or not,” she says, setting off for a clearer spot a few rows over. “We’ve gone far enough for tonight.”

“It’s me, no one will care,” Nico mutters, but he follows her.

Why she decides this patch of ground is better than any other, he’s not sure, but she settles next to a bare circle of dirt, drops her bag on the ground and hands Nico a bottle of water. He sips, sloshes it around in his mouth, and spits it down the hill through his front teeth, more out of habit than anything else. When he turns around, Reyna’s eyeing him, utterly impassive. He hunches over, cupping his hands around the bottle.

With great deliberation, Reyna unscrews her own bottle, takes a sip, tilts her head back and spits her own mouthful in the same direction. It goes about six feet farther than Nico’s. Reyna sets the bottle down with all the solemnity of a judge in court.

Nico blinks.

“Nice,” he says. Reyna’s already started gathering sticks from the base of the tree, but she nods at him. It’s hard to tell what she means by it in the dusk, but he shrugs, reaches up and snaps a dead branch off the tree above him. Free pruning for the orchard-keepers, right?

“Sit,” Reyna orders, grabbing the other end of the branch. Nico wants to argue, but his head still aches, and he sighs.

“Fine.” He settles himself cross-legged on the ground, elbows perched on his knees, and tries another drink of water while Reyna gets the fire started. It’s paler than any of Hestia’s fires, more washed-out, and he wonders how the hearth goddess is dealing with the divine rift. Does home change that much from country to country?

He inches closer to the fire, stretching his palms out as close to it as he dares, until he’s afraid the sparks are going to leap into his hands. Leo could probably reach his hands all the way in, if he wanted to pray.

“Lady Hestia,” he murmurs, “make this fire a safe home for us tonight, for those of us who have no better.”

When he looks up, Reyna is watching him. The sparks swirl around her face.

“I haven’t heard that invocation before,” she says at last.

“Made it up,” Nico mumbles, tucking his hands under his arms. “It seemed right.” He’d tried to make it sound like the prayers at church that he’d started to remember, now and then, in the past few years – Bianca kicking him so he’d stay still, someone’s gloved hand settled in his hair.

“Mercury is the travelers’ god,” Reyna says, laying another branch across the fire, and seriously, he has no idea what she’s getting at. She could be kind of impressed; she could be furious. “And she had far more power as Vesta. Rome knows how to honor the hearth.”

“Yeah, well, I knew her as Hestia,” Nico snaps, curling in on himself a little tighter. Reyna stops with another branch halfway to the fire.

“When you say you knew her…” she says carefully, eyes narrowed. Nico shrugs, scraping his foot through the dirt.

“She tends the fires at Camp Half-Blood,” he says, watching the flames lick up around a few dried leaves. They crumble and curl in on themselves before they fall away. “I spoke to her. I didn’t – I knew she was important, but not that she was an Olympian, not at first. Not for a while. Most people didn’t talk to her, she said. But she let me. She put up with me.” He’d found his way to the fire that first winter, before Bianca died, before he realized why he was so sure Percy more than anyone could protect his sister, before he’d had any idea how complicated all of it could be. The firstborn of Olympus had sat by her fire and let him toast January marshmallows and picked up his Mythomagic cards and turned them over to look at the pictures. Dionysus’s card made her laugh, warm and soft in the cloudy day. It was after he’d burned that card on the banks of the Styx that he’d started dedicating his campfires to her.

“Well,” Reyna says at last, settling her branch in tonight’s fire. Sparks fly up, and the last blackened shells of the leaves collapse out of sight. “If she still tends the fires after the war, I hope you’ll introduce us.” She pauses, and then stretches her hands out over the fire too, flat and facing down. “Ave, Vesta.  Fac ignis…” It takes him a moment to realize she’s translating his blessing.

After that they sit in silence. Slowly Nico’s headache fades, and the warmth of the fire settles into his limbs at least a little. The moon rises over the trees.

“Should we worry about Coach Hedge?” he asks at one point.

“I don’t expect him back until morning,” she says, head tilted back to watch the stars. Nico buries his fingers in the earth at his side, brushing the orchard’s leaves out of the way. Gaea’s ground, Gaea’s strength, but it still lies cool and comforting on the backs of his fingers. He can’t feel his way through the earth like Hazel can, but he can imagine what it’s like beneath this orchard, roots lacing around each other to make a canopy for any caves that might be underneath, like a thinner and more tendrilled version of the branches that sway against the stars. Layer and layer of life, and the earth and all its riches and all its dead settled underneath it. And Gaea trying to shake all that history out.

Nico tightens his fingers in the dirt and sets his jaw against the sky, inhales and makes himself let go. He’s already done all he can today.

Reyna stands, spear in her hand. “We’ll need more firewood,” she says, and bounces twice on the balls of her feet. To loosen up, or something? Nico pries himself out of the ground, but the butt of Reyna’s spear lands between his feet. “Stay put,” she says. “Rest. I won’t be far. Shout if you see as much as a raccoon.” He glares; she glares back.

“I can carry my own weight,” he snaps.

“And so you are.” Her mouth twitches. “Technically, you’re carrying _all_ of our weight. It’s my job to make sure that you can. Now stay put.” And with that, she’s gone into the shadows. Nico glares after her, then sighs and resettles his elbows on the ground.

When she returns, she’s singing as she comes up behind him, a soft slow song that she stretches out like the long shadows spreading off the fire. He can only pick out a few words from the stretched-out notes: something about sunset, and day, and the ocean.

It isn’t until she crouches down next to him, heaping sticks not far away as she repeats a verse, that he realizes she’s singing in Greek.

“Where’d you learn Greek songs?” he demands, brushing dirt off the cracks in his knuckles. Reyna blinks, sitting back on her heels.

“I’m Roman-born, but I grew up on Circe’s island,” she says. “Music was important there. And that was always one of my favorite songs.” She picks up a stick, pokes at the fire and stubs the end out in the ground. She doesn’t seem to have changed anything to Nico, but he doesn’t usually make campfires. “It’s about a good day’s work, about coming home at the end of the day and realizing that you’ve done well. That you’ve earned your night’s rest.” She pauses, rearranges herself until she’s sitting, legs stretched out towards the fire. “It’s the only Greek I know easily – from the songs.”

He shrugs, nodding slightly. There doesn’t seem to be anything to say. She pulls her knees up to her chest, curls her arms around her legs, and unfolds herself again, finally settling on tailor-style. Nico stretches his hands out to the fire again, just for something to do.

“You speak – Greek, English, and some Latin?” she asks. He twitches, surprised. “Not a lot of us really have all three. Not well.”

“My Greek isn’t any better than my Latin,” Nico says, hunching his shoulders. The heat from the fire is drying out his hands, making the skin feel tighter over the bones, but it’s kind of nice. It’s only painful, none of the heavy hopelessness that sunk into his skin with every scrape he got in Tartarus.

“Well, you have pretty good Latin for a _graecus.”_ When he glances sideways, she’s – eyeing him, like she’s evaluating. Nico figures she should have a pretty good idea of what he’s useful for by now, but whatever. “How’d that happen?”

“Oh. Hazel helped.” They used to sit on top of the shrine to Pluto and see how long they could talk about the legion without slipping into English. “And it’s like Italian, so I can guess.”

“Latin comes easier to you because it’s like Italian,” Reyna says flatly. When Nico looks up, she’s staring at him, hands flat to the earth at her sides; he doesn’t know what he does, but she shakes her head, slowly relaxing. “Well. That’s… how do you know Italian better than the language of your heritage?”

“My…” His mouth tastes like sand. His water bottle is still tucked against his hip; he fumbles for the cap and swallows quickly, which helps a little. Not that much. “My mother was Italian. I learned it from her.” Something makes him add, “It’s more the – the _language of my heritage_ than Latin, anyway. At least as much as Greek.”

Reyna tugs something from the ground at her feet. When she flicks it into the fire, Nico sees that it’s a blade of grass. “I… I grew up speaking Spanish, but. Only when I was very young. I’ve forgotten most of it, now.” She scowls into the fire. “My father didn’t speak much English. He definitely didn’t speak Latin. Definitely not Greek.”

Nico nods clumsily, digs his fingers into the ground again. Something flickers at him – a death, somewhere in the distance, like an offbeat chord of music. It’s not a human death, not even close, or a monster death. Something that can’t speak, maybe something he wouldn’t even notice if he wasn’t feeling more like a shadow than a person. Shadow travel does that, makes you forget how to leave. Alecto never mentioned it, though, so maybe it’s just him.

“Why are you telling me this?” he asks Reyna, glaring at the dirt around his fingers. She sits up straighter, her lips thin and sharp in the firelight.

“We’re travelling together,” she says, watching the fire. “Fighting together. Why shouldn’t I?” Nico can actually see her swallow, and she blinks harder than makes any sense. She looks – hurt. Nico stares.

“Bianca and I would speak Italian when we didn’t want people to understand us,” he says, kicking at a log at the edge of the fire. It dislodges another one, shooting off sparks as it crackles and falls into the middle. Reyna doesn’t seem to care, though, so Nico figures that isn’t going to ruin anything. “That’s – it’s probably why I still know it. Because. We used to use it.”

“Who’s Bianca?” Reyna asks, glancing over at him in surprise, and suddenly his eyes are burning. He blinks hard, swallowing it back.

“She – she was my sister,” he says, and closes his eyes, because he refuses to wipe them. He isn’t a kid anymore. “My full sister. She, she was older than me.”

Reyna only nods. She doesn’t look pitying, or anything. Just like she’s listening to him. “I have an older sister, too,” she says, and fumbles with something at her belt, staring down at it. Nico drags his hand across his face while she’s distracted, as quickly as he can; when he looks up again, she’s got her water bottle in her hands. She spins it slowly between her palms. “We grew up together, but – she joined the Amazons. I joined the Legion.”

“Bianca joined the Hunters,” Nico says. “She was supposed to be immortal, and then she died after a _week._ ” His voice cracks humiliatingly through three different octaves on the last word, and he grabs for his water bottle again, hands slipping off the cap. Reyna breathes out, soft and slow, and leans over to set her water bottle, opened, in the dirt in front of him. For a moment all he can do is stare.

“I, uh, I have plenty,” he says, waving his own bottle at the sky. Reyna only nods, watching him carefully. She has really long eyelashes, and her hair is sticking to her forehead, and she smells sharp, like fresh sweat. It’s less gross than it should be. His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth.

“Can… can I try something?”

Reyna raises her eyebrows. “I… suppose. What –”

Nico leans forward and kisses her.

It’s stupid. It’s really stupid. Her lips are cool and kind of sticky, and they sit in perfect stillness for a moment with his mouth pressed up against hers. Then Nico catapults backwards; there’s a heavy _clunk_ as her water bottle flies into the darkness on the left, and Nico’s entire face – okay, doesn’t actually feel like it’s on fire, he almost had that happen once and it felt way worse than this, but he feels sick and hot and feverishly stupid.

“Sorry,” he says, pulling his knees up to his chest. “I don’t – I didn’t – I’m not –”

Reyna straightens slowly, pushing her braid behind her shoulder. Nico abruptly considers that he just kissed the _Praetor_ of _New Rome_ , and he wants nothing more than to close his eyes and let his edges blur into the shadows. Although he’d probably throw up again, and possibly also doom the world to civil war and Gaea’s waking. He’s an idiot.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

Reyna exhales slowly, folding her hands in front of her. “Nico. I – it’s not that I’m not flattered, but I’m nearly four years older than you. And –”

“It’s not – you don’t have to –” Nico nearly chokes on his own tongue, which he figures is a sign of some kind of talent. “I.” He swallows. “It wasn’t – I wasn’t – I don’t. It didn’t work anyway.”

“What didn’t work?” Reyna sits forward again, losing some of the straight-spine Praetor-stiffness. “Is there some kind of, of spell, or –”

“No!” Nico stares at the ground, where Reyna’s water bottle is still spilling into the dirt. He rights it, grimacing. “I just – I wanted to. Forget about someone.” He thinks of Percy, just in case – still finds himself imagining bright gleeful eyes and Percy’s wiry strength and the way the muscles in his arms stand out when he draws Riptide. Nothing’s fixed.

“I see,” Reyna says softly. Cloth rustles; when Nico glances sideways, he can see her stretching her hands out to the fire. Her mouth is tight, twisted around. “Who is it?”

“Anna –” It’s an easy lie, but his arm aches as he tries to say it, along the sharp line where the arrow hit him. Aren’t Eros’s arrows supposed to make you fall in love with other people? New people? “No one. It doesn’t matter?”

“Annabeth?” Reyna reaches up, undoes the tie at the end of her braid and combs her fingers through the last few inches, idle in the firelight. She’s pretty, but it feels like noticing that a painting is pretty, or the hills, or Hazel. Not like anything normal. Nico opens his mouth to deny it, but Reyna keeps talking: “She’s very beautiful, certainly. Kind. Staggeringly clever. Brave. Extraordinary.”

Also sunshiney, cheerful, the head of a thriving Olympian cabin full of campers who love her. And a girl, can’t forget that. Nico digs his fingers into his palms just as Reyna adds, “And I’ve always had a weakness for blond hair.”

_What?_

“You don’t – you mean…”

“It’s not a big thing,” Reyna says, pulling loose another inch of braid. “I’m not pining, or heartbroken. But she is. Well. Impressive.” Softly, she adds, “Percy’s very lucky.”

“You have a crush on Annabeth.” Nico says it slowly. It sounds muffled somehow. “But you –”

“But I what?” She lifts her chin, staring at him, like it’s a challenge. Even in the light, he can see something sharp-stung in the set of her mouth, and _crap._ It’s true.

“And you’re just _telling me?”_ His voice cracks again, too loud in the orchard, but he doesn’t care. “For no reason?”

“And why not?” she snaps. “I’m not praetor here, and you’re not exactly a gossipmonger. Why shouldn’t I mention it? I carry enough!”

“It’s not _safe!”_ Nico yelps. “How do you not care if people know? What if I told the whole camp, or attacked you, or –”

“You couldn’t beat me on your best day, child of Pluto, and you can barely stand,” she snarls. One hand twitches towards her belt; she stops and shakes her head, sharp and bitter. “Tell who you want. If every rumor about me was true, I’d be with half the camp. Nobody listens.”

“Even about –” Nico hesitates.

“Girls? What, nobody told you?” Reyna snorts, turning back to the fire. “Octavian outed me at the praetorial elections two years ago. I don’t know how he found out. You’d think his stinking toys would have more important things to reveal to him, but maybe he got someone else to tell him.”

“I – what? Everyone knows?” Nico shoves his hands into his pockets, suddenly cold. He’d seen people holding hands in Los Angeles a couple times, seen two older woman kissing on the New York subway once, and nobody had done anything much, but. It had never seemed the same somehow. “And nobody… cares? And none of the gods did anything, or…”

“And why should they do anything?” Her voice hits him like a whip-crack, and she shoves herself to her feet, hands balled at her sides. “What should they have done, pray? Oust me? Fix me? Change me? I burned offerings at Venus’s temple every night for a week before I asked Cassidy out, and I had more luck with her than I ever have with any of the men in my life, whatever I offered over _them._ There’s Zeus and Ganymede, Tiresias, Poseidon and Pelops, Apollo and Hyacinthus – the gods have no grounds to object to my tastes, and if we weren’t at war, I would duel you for the insult.” She stalks three steps from the fire, ramrod-straight, and stands shaking at the edge of the light. Nico swallows nausea, again, as she drags her arm across her eyes. Her shoulders don’t shake. “I expected better of you,” she says, bitter, staring at the trees. Nico shudders, curling into his jacket, throat tight and guilty. It wasn’t what he meant. It was never what he meant. He’d just hoped…

Reyna, still standing with her back to him, drags her braid forward and starts to refasten it. The firelight catches on a bruise on the back of her arm. Probably from when she blocked a bloody-beaked bird from dive-bombing Nico the other day. He takes a deep, slow breath.

“It was Percy,” he says, as loudly as he can. It comes out a dry rasp. “I mean. He was the one I wanted to forget about.” He hunches forward, wondering if Hestia can hear what’s said around hearthfires. If she’s listening to this, at all. For some reason. If he’ll see her at Camp Half-Blood.

When he looks up, Reyna has turned back to him, mouth open. She’s not reaching for her knife, at least.

“You…”

“Yeah.” For the third time that night, his voice cracks. His water bottle is somewhere behind him, he’s not sure where. “I mean, I guess. I.”

“Well.” Slowly, she settles next to him, folding her legs beneath her. “I see. I… suppose you can forget what I said about the duel, then.”

He shrugs. “Doesn’t matter.”

The fire crackles for a while.

“Is this the first time you’ve told anyone?” she asks him, her voice quiet in the darkness. She sounds softer, like Hazel speaking to Arion. Nico feels cold in a shaky, hollowed-out way that makes him think of nights by the Cocytus, of ghosts behind him. He reaches into his pants pocket, curls his fingers around the heavy little Hades figure. He clutches it until his fingers hurt.

“When Jason and I went to get the scepter of Diocletian,” he says haltingly, rubbing a thumb over the rough-carved robes. “We ran into Eros, and. Some stuff happened. Jason found out. But I didn’t – I didn’t decide to tell him, or anything. He was just there.”

“Jason’s a good guy,” Reyna says softly, tugging at her hair again. Nico glances up at her, wondering if he’s seen her look so sad before. “You can trust him. He won’t spread it around.”

“He said that. But…” Nico traces the little Hades face. He tries not to do this – the figure’s easy to lose, and it’s pretty dumb  – but it’s something to do with his hand, anyway. The nose presses into the pad of his thumb. “I’ve never kissed anyone before,” he admits, watching the fire lick around the crumbled black logs. “I was hoping that it would change something. That I’d outgrow it, or. I don’t know.”

“That you’d outgrow Percy, or that you’d be straight?”

“I don’t know,” Nico says again, softly. “Both, I guess? I mean, I just. I’m already the son of Hades. I’m not even supposed to be in this century. It’s not like I needed _more_ ways I don’t belong.”

“I understand,” Reyna says. Her braid is halfway unravelled by this point. He’d never really thought about talking about this with someone who _would_ understand. “But – there are more of us, you know. And there are people who don’t like you any less.” She laughs, a little. “Would you believe me if I said there’s even upsides? Things with Cassidy were wonderful while it lasted.”

“What happened to her?” Nico asks, glancing up over the fire. Reyna blinks at him, confusion flashing across her face.

“We just grew apart, that’s all. It happens. I was praetor, it was busy, and she was working more and more on her music, she wanted to do something with that when she graduated the legion.” She looks at the crackling cold, turning the backs of her hands to the fire. “She was an amazing cellist – her father was Phoebus, so. But even for his children, she was good.”

“Oh.” Nico picks at the ground, chewing his lip. Should he say he’s sorry, say that she sounds like a cool person, something else? “I…”

Reyna shrugs before he has to find an end to that sentence, reaches back to shake her hair free from its half-remaining braid and pull it forwards over her shoulders. “Anyway. Things have gotten better, for us. Queer people, I mean. Not perfect, but it’s better than it used to be.”

Nico shrugs, scratching at the dirt. “Maybe.” Scrape, scrape, scratch. He’s going to leave five little trenches on either side of him, when he stands up. Probably more, actually. He brushes his hands over the ground to check and finds another imprint, from earlier. His lip stings where he’s chewing on it.

“What is it?” Reyna asks, wrapping a hair elastic around the end of her braid. Her eyes on him are frighteningly certain. “You’re hiding something.”

“Not –” he starts; he meets her gaze and sighs, nudging one log of the fire with his foot. Another one thumps lightly to the ground, and sparks settle on his jeans. They don’t hurt, though. “You know that Hazel. Hades never broke the pact, not like the others, so –”

“Oh. _Oh._ ” He can hear the rustle of cloth next to him as Reyna sits back. He doesn’t look at her. If she looks sorry for him, or shocked, then – “I see. And you’re worried she won’t –”

“Why would she?”

“Well.” Reyna sounds awkward now, carefully delicate; when he looks up, she’s staring at the trees, thoughtful. “I don’t know Hazel well,” she says, slowly, “but you _are_ her family. That counts for a great deal. And the times are changing. She knows that. She’s ready to change with them.”

“She’s all I have,” Nico whispers, watching the fire crackle up. “And I – and I –”

Reyna’s hand settles on his shoulder, squeezing gently.

Nico shies like a startled horse, whole body twitching away from the contact. The pressure lightens, Reyna pulling away, and before he thinks of it he reaches up to hold her hand in place. Her knuckles are rough under his palm, chapped and split, and she exhales slowly and squeezes his shoulder harder. He squeezes back, staring at the flames.

“Nico,” she says, “as long as I’m praetor, there will be a place for you in New Rome. I promise.”

“Th –” He can’t speak. He can’t speak at all. He clears his throat, rough and painful, and tries again. “Thank you.”

The wind shifts, blowing a cloudful of smoke off of the fire and into them. Reyna pulls back, coughing hard, and flings her arm over her face. Nico fumbles around for a water bottle, seeing hers still spilling into the ground a few feet to his right, and twists around behind him. His own bumps against his hand.

“Here,” he says, screwing the top off quickly, and holds it out to her. “Since I spilled yours. I’m sorry.” Still coughing, Reyna takes it and drinks deep. Nico flaps his hands at the smoke, which probably doesn’t help at all, but it’s something at least.

“Thanks,” Reyna says at last, wiping her hand across her mouth. She holds the water bottle out to him; Nico shakes his head.

“Hang onto it. I spill them, apparently,” he says, glancing up at her. “Oh – here.” He holds out the cap. “That’ll help.” She smiles softly, taking it.

“Thank you,” she says, capping the bottle, and clips it onto her belt. “You should try to sleep. I’ll rest when Coach Hedge gets back, and we can both catch up a bit before we leave.”

“Okay.” He stretches out, trying not to stick his feet too much in her face, and closes his eyes, letting the warmth of the fire soak into him. She starts singing again, slow and quiet. “ _Hoson zes phainou, medon holos sy lypou_ …”

He drifts to sleep.


End file.
